Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[the mole]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

turns out poe isn't an exact 1/1 copy of baldurs gate 2

 

[the mole]

skyrim lets your wizard use all the spells, you could play that

 

[the mole]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to when you mean alteration or conjuration

alteration would presumably be self buffs, which are very powerful, you get huge armor and defense bonuses can conjure weapons and boost your accuracy, and personally I don't use a wizard so I don't even know what conjuration spells they have in poe 2, I use a druid in poe2

all of the classes have very specific roles for certain situations

we could go really indepth and explain what each class does best and what they are used for but

1. I think you're smart enough to realize what the roles are
and 2. I don't really feel like going through all the effort

 

[the mole]

Work in the same narrow way and to do the same narrow thing. Once you’ve effortlessly blown out a combat or three things get boring. Games where you can offer a wide variety of angles of attack - and have to - are more interesting.

I think you've been spoiled by Pathfinder. And KotC maybe.
There indeed, apart from normal magic and spell-like effects you have Combat Maneuvers that target CMD, Attacks of Opportunity, bombs, rays and some other obscure mechanics. Great stuff.

But really, other then those, how many games do you know that offer a significantly broader ability/power variety then Deadfire?
You have 4 defenses in Deadfire and you can attack all of them. Different classes specialize in assaulting different defenses (with Deflection obviously being most common, as the typical "martial" defense). Also you can play the debuffing game to majorly reduce enemy defenses (defense reducing weapon modals are borderline OP, certain debuff spells/powers are very potent too). Its not too difficult to drop an enemy defense by 40+ points.

You have single target spells, ray (pulsing) spells, wall spells, aoe spells, aoe pulsing spells. With various CC/debuff effects attached. DOTs. You have multiple debilitations, including the classic Paralyze and Stun, but also milder, that for example disable offensive ability use or prevent engagement.

Personally I have trouble finding computer games with significantly more rich mechanics.

I want to try a flail carnage barbarian, maybe dual wield flail and club with both modals and then see how much that softens up enemies

In Deadfire Carnage doesn't carry such effects, I'm afraid. The only weapon special that really benefits from carnage is Lord Darryn's Voulge (carnage delivers Static Charges). Also monk Efficient Anguish can cause the primary weapon attack target to be hit by Carnage also. And I think one of Amra greataxe enchants can have a similar effect.

I'd suggest something else to that tune: use a two-handed morningstar with Fortitude debuffing modal instead. With Brute Force you'll eventually target Fortitude instead of Deflection (if lower), so that leads to plenty of crits. Add Spirit Frenzy to also Stagger enemies on hit (another -10 Fortitude) for a juicy -35 Fort on enemies you attack. Absolutely great for a friendly cipher to land his Disintegrates, Amplified Waves and such. Willbreaker morningstar can also debuff enemy Will by up to -25 (with Shaken & 5 stacks) - again, nice for the Cipher and other CC casters.

Would make a decent multiclass with a Fighter I guess - his Mule Kicks and Clear Out moves target Fortitude instead of Deflection.
Or with a Chanter: Long Night's Drink is ANOTHER -14 Fortitude (so -49 Fort now - and attacks target Fort), Their Companion Braved the Horde Alone provides Energized - and Interrupt on crit - not only on weapon attacks, but also on offensive Chant (such as Long Night's Drink) pulses, Spirit Tornado triggers and so on.

Edit: What could work to aoe debuff, would be Barbarian Heart of Fury (SC only, expensive), Ranger Whirling strikes (SC only) or Fighter's Clear Out (SC or MC, but main hand only).

My goal is to spam teheku ice spells so fort isn't my main priority, that build would have been great on my barb rogue playthrough though but dual wield was easy enough

 

[the mole]

I guess in poe2 you can dual class wizard chanter, so you get most of the aoe spells, and summons

but I guess you can't have every single spell in the game on one character

but if you aren't lazy you could raise arcana skill and use scrolls instead to use the spells you can't get through level up

I mean you'd have to play the game and not complain though

also weapons and armor have spells enchanted on them usually per rest, but those are even more spells you have to use

 

[Strange Fellow]

Take it easy, Josh.

 

[the mole]

Take it easy, Josh.

crybabies never learn

the neuroplasticity is gone

it's gone forever

 

[the mole]

I think technically cipher chanter with arcana skill allows you to use every spell in the game

I don't think cipher or chanter spells are on scrolls, so if you weren't lazy and actually played the game you could have this wizard character with every spell if you want, but if you never played the game you would never experience that

 

[Cryomancer]

all of the classes have very specific roles for certain situations

Which is a very "mmoesque" to the idea of "classes"... On original D&D, a Fighter can be a ranged DPS(bow/crossbow), a "tank"(shield + high con), a close quarters DPS(two handed weapon). Fighter focus on using weapons which can be used for a lot of different "roles" and that is it. Clerics? Clerics are the representatives of his deity. They aren't just "healers", a cleric can worship a death God or a destructive God like Talos.

Except that in case of PoE2 is worse. If the game give me the option to play as a illusionist or conjurer, I wanna to be able to play as one.

Point to Obsidian, they din't included necromancers in his game. They would ruin it more than they ruined on nwn2 which requires spell fixes mod to be good.

 

[the mole]

all of the classes have very specific roles for certain situations

Which is a very "mmoesque" to the idea of "classes"... On original D&D, a Fighter can be a ranged DPS(bow/crossbow), a "tank"(shield + high con), a close quarters DPS(two handed weapon). Fighter focus on using weapons which can be used for a lot of different "roles" and that is it. Clerics? Clerics are the representatives of his deity. They aren't just "healers", a cleric can worship a death God or a destructive God like Talos.

Except that in case of PoE2 is worse. If the game give me the option to play as a illusionist or conjurer, I wanna to be able to play as one.

Point to Obsidian, they din't included necromancers in his game. They would ruin it more than they ruined on nwn2 which requires spell fixes mod to be good.

you do have those options you just choose to complain about them here and not play the game

 

[AwesomeButton]

I mean honestly, I couldn't tell the difference half the time between one class and another. Magic items were all alike, no real crafting fun that I noticed. I mean, what was the difference between priest, wizard, cipher, etc.? A knockdown spell? Some other crap? I dunno. I mean, even the Paladin sub-classes could have had so much more flavor to them.

Yeah, it's full of people who approach PoE/Deadfire with some expectations formed by the IE games, and when they encounter qualitatively different, and much more complex and flexible systems, they never have the disposition to get into them and learn how to play by them. Instead they just drop the game and write uninformed comments like this one.

Is this a mistake on Josh's part, that his design diverged too much from what he was advertising he is "spiritually succeeding"? I think that's his core mistake. The systems themselves are quite good for something developed mostly by one guy who was also managing the whole gamedev project.

 

[Haplo]

wizard self buffs, aoe attacks effecting all targets but generally more powerful effects

Wizard fells more like a "generic mmo" wizard, instead of a "infinity engine" wizard.
Where are the social spells like charm person?

Cipher. Also Chanter.

The powerful necromantic spells?

A chanter can spam a horde of skeletal minions. Eventually passively. Every 3 seconds in case of Troubadour.
Cipher will leech stats and Frighten enemies. Wizard can leech health and Terrify enemies. High level Wizard can also temporarily banish enemies who would dare touch him while afflicting them with a DOT.

Conjuration of demons to do your biding?

Not really there... but a chanter will have other mighty summons, including adult dragons and animated weapons.

Divination?

Uh, got me there. Then again, DnD games don't really have reason to be very proud of that aspect either?

Teleportation?

On Rogue and ranger; eventually also (more expensive) on barbarian, monk and fighter.

Item enchanting spells?

Umm, wizard actually. I mean, other classes can summon certain weapons also, but only wizard has access to
-> a bow that fires bouncing arrows that terrify enemies,
-> a lance that does aoe damage (and carries on-hit effects of special abilities),
-> balls of elemental energy that do aoe damage when thrown,
-> a staff that drains life on hit;
-> a life leeching touch that targets Willpower instead of Deflection (normally one off, but...)
What's interesting, is that if said wizard summons a double (Essential Pahntom, Substantial Phantom), he will have the original's equipment - including special weapons and their effects. Draining Touch won't dissapear on discharge for him...

Polymorth spells?

Umm, a druid can polymorph himself?

Disintegration spells?

Simple. Cipher.

 

[Haplo]

Wizards shalt only have friendly-fire AoE damage and debuff in a quasai-Vancian manner. Ciphers shalt only single-target damage and control with a gimmicky mana pool. Druids shalt only summon and slightly less AoE damage with no friendly-fire. Priests shall only support and AoE debuff with no friendly-fire. Chanters shall passively do just about any of those things, but so mildly as to have no meaningful impact until most battles are about over anyway. These contrived class gimmicks were made further dissatisfying by the combination of "no bad builds" and "no hard counters". Nothing could ever be seriously effective, but nothing could truly fail either. Many of the debuffs are also milquetoast to begin with, so having them last such a short period wasn't doing them any favors either. The Cipher was something of an exception, because you could actually do things like Paralyze something; however, against anything worth paralyzing, this might last a whole of 1.8 seconds due to the "no hard counters" design influence. That's a narrow window to capitalize on. None of that is satisfying.

You're doing well convincing me you've never actually played the game.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Haplo That's very dismissive, but not a compelling argument against what I've written. I played PoE 1, right when v3.0 arrived. First as a Wizard, but a bit after arriving in Defiance Bay, I restarted as a Cipher. On that run I scoured every bit of content right to to Twin Elms. I uninstalled the game not long after arriving. I knew the end had to be close, but I couldn't be bothered. Highlights of the game included the art direction and Durance. I did not play White March DLC. I do think the game had a great deal of potential, but just missed the mark. It's not awful, but it is not good. For a game and developer that were supposed to be a triumphant risen phoenix, that's a sin.

 

[Parabalus]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

Even with those 'lackluster' spells PoE wizards are still OP compared to others.

Somehow Sawyer managed to fail both camps, those hungry for balance and those who want wizard's with AWESOMEBUTTONs.

 

[the mole]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

Even with those lackluster spells PoE wizards are still OP compared to others.

Somehow Sawyer managed to fail both camps, those hungry for balance and those who want wizard's with AWESOMEBUTTONs.

so which one is it genius, lackluster or overpowered

 

[Funposter]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

Even with those lackluster spells PoE wizards are still OP compared to others.

Somehow Sawyer managed to fail both camps, those hungry for balance and those who want wizard's with AWESOMEBUTTONs.

so which one is it genius, lackluster or overpowered

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

 

[the mole]

name one game that allows your wizard to have all of those spells at the same time

Baldur's Gate 2 and ToB.

You can cast stop time, wish, wail of the banshee, finger of death, animate dead, polymorth, cloudkill, charm person, dominate person, shapechange(...) with a single character. The problem is that Pillars has only lackluster spells. You can't compare cloudkill with "malignant cloud" or wathever the spell is called.

In fact, why anyone would pick alteration or conjuration as a wizard on pillars 2?

Even with those lackluster spells PoE wizards are still OP compared to others.

Somehow Sawyer managed to fail both camps, those hungry for balance and those who want wizard's with AWESOMEBUTTONs.

so which one is it genius, lackluster or overpowered

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

you don't know shit about english then or context

in this context they are antonyms

 

[the mole]

so which one is it, the spells are lackluster or overpowered

 

[the mole]

how idiots use semantics to cover up their stupid subjective opinions 101

then they have the nerve to pretend they are objective

you're too old

gaming is done for you, there are no neurons being activated for you

 

[Cryomancer]

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

Yep. If Wizards had only fireball, but the fireball was enough to win any encounter wit it, it would be very lackluster and boring. Being a mage in Gothic 2 + RETURNING is not lackluster but is pretty hard. Took 14 hours for me to become a circle 1 necromancer in that game(the game is over 200 hours), not only being accepted into the circle of darkness require a long quest and grinding int(which can't be trained, you get int by reading books, doing alchemy, etc) and after it, I had to get reagents, a runestone and make a magical rune, each summon has a mana upkeep cost per second which can easily eats more mana than what you can regen with potion(which require a drinking animation and regents slowly)

When you get your first arrow of darkness spell, there are a lot of creatures which takes ZERO damage from it. In fact, as a dark magician you can only hope to defeat demons without spending expensive scrolls at circle 4. A thing which fire mages can do much earlier in the game. And circle 3 spear of darkness is strong enough to OHK dire wolves.

A RPG game is not like Chess where only the gameplay matters. The gameplay needs to be aligned with the lore. Disintegrate which never disintegrate anything, and works like a generic DoT, low INT wizards being possible despite the game's lore establishing that wizards are intellectuals, mundane animals soaking multiple fireballs(...) This is what makes magery lackluster on pillars.

 

[the mole]

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

Yep. If Wizards had only fireball, but the fireball was enough to win any encounter wit it, it would be very lackluster and boring. Being a mage in Gothic 2 + RETURNING is not lackluster but is pretty hard. Took 14 hours for me to become a circle 1 necromancer in that game(the game is over 200 hours), not only being accepted into the circle of darkness require a long quest and grinding int(which can't be trained, you get int by reading books, doing alchemy, etc) and after it, I had to get reagents, a runestone and make a magical rune, each summon has a mana upkeep cost per second which can easily eats more mana than what you can regen with potion(which require a drinking animation and regents slowly)

When you get your first arrow of darkness spell, there are a lot of creatures which takes ZERO damage from it. In fact, as a dark magician you can only hope to defeat demons without spending expensive scrolls at circle 4. A thing which fire mages can do much earlier in the game. And circle 3 spear of darkness is strong enough to OHK dire wolves.

A RPG game is not like Chess where only the gameplay matters. The gameplay needs to be aligned with the lore. Disintegrate which never disintegrate anything, and works like a generic DoT, low INT wizards being possible despite the game's lore establishing that wizards are intellectuals, mundane animals soaking multiple fireballs(...) This is what makes magery lackluster on pillars.

so what does any of that verbal diarrhea have to do with pillars of eternity

a game you don't play and never play

 

[Cryomancer]

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

Yep. If Wizards had only fireball, but the fireball was enough to win any encounter wit it, it would be very lackluster and boring. Being a mage in Gothic 2 + RETURNING is not lackluster but is pretty hard. Took 14 hours for me to become a circle 1 necromancer in that game(the game is over 200 hours), not only being accepted into the circle of darkness require a long quest and grinding int(which can't be trained, you get int by reading books, doing alchemy, etc) and after it, I had to get reagents, a runestone and make a magical rune, each summon has a mana upkeep cost per second which can easily eats more mana than what you can regen with potion(which require a drinking animation and regents slowly)

When you get your first arrow of darkness spell, there are a lot of creatures which takes ZERO damage from it. In fact, as a dark magician you can only hope to defeat demons without spending expensive scrolls at circle 4. A thing which fire mages can do much earlier in the game. And circle 3 spear of darkness is strong enough to OHK dire wolves.

A RPG game is not like Chess where only the gameplay matters. The gameplay needs to be aligned with the lore. Disintegrate which never disintegrate anything, and works like a generic DoT, low INT wizards being possible despite the game's lore establishing that wizards are intellectuals, mundane animals soaking multiple fireballs(...) This is what makes magery lackluster on pillars.

so what does any of that verbal diarrhea have to do with pillars of eternity

a game you don't play and never play

1 - An example of a game which made caster's live very hard and was very fun
2 - An example that casters can be hard to be played without breaking the "role playing"
3 - I posted a screenshot some posts ago showing over 90 hours on Pillars 2

 

[the mole]

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

Yep. If Wizards had only fireball, but the fireball was enough to win any encounter wit it, it would be very lackluster and boring. Being a mage in Gothic 2 + RETURNING is not lackluster but is pretty hard. Took 14 hours for me to become a circle 1 necromancer in that game(the game is over 200 hours), not only being accepted into the circle of darkness require a long quest and grinding int(which can't be trained, you get int by reading books, doing alchemy, etc) and after it, I had to get reagents, a runestone and make a magical rune, each summon has a mana upkeep cost per second which can easily eats more mana than what you can regen with potion(which require a drinking animation and regents slowly)

When you get your first arrow of darkness spell, there are a lot of creatures which takes ZERO damage from it. In fact, as a dark magician you can only hope to defeat demons without spending expensive scrolls at circle 4. A thing which fire mages can do much earlier in the game. And circle 3 spear of darkness is strong enough to OHK dire wolves.

A RPG game is not like Chess where only the gameplay matters. The gameplay needs to be aligned with the lore. Disintegrate which never disintegrate anything, and works like a generic DoT, low INT wizards being possible despite the game's lore establishing that wizards are intellectuals, mundane animals soaking multiple fireballs(...) This is what makes magery lackluster on pillars.

so what does any of that verbal diarrhea have to do with pillars of eternity

a game you don't play and never play

1 - An example of a game which made caster's live very hard and was very fun
2 - An example that casters can be hard to be played without breaking the "role playing"
3 - I posted a screenshot some posts ago showing over 90 hours on Pillars 2

none of the shit you said had anything to do with pillars of eternity

I feel like you didn't read my question

what the fuck does any of that have to do with pillars of eternity

 

[Cryomancer]

Lacklustre and overpowered are not antonyms.

Yep. If Wizards had only fireball, but the fireball was enough to win any encounter wit it, it would be very lackluster and boring. Being a mage in Gothic 2 + RETURNING is not lackluster but is pretty hard. Took 14 hours for me to become a circle 1 necromancer in that game(the game is over 200 hours), not only being accepted into the circle of darkness require a long quest and grinding int(which can't be trained, you get int by reading books, doing alchemy, etc) and after it, I had to get reagents, a runestone and make a magical rune, each summon has a mana upkeep cost per second which can easily eats more mana than what you can regen with potion(which require a drinking animation and regents slowly)

When you get your first arrow of darkness spell, there are a lot of creatures which takes ZERO damage from it. In fact, as a dark magician you can only hope to defeat demons without spending expensive scrolls at circle 4. A thing which fire mages can do much earlier in the game. And circle 3 spear of darkness is strong enough to OHK dire wolves.

A RPG game is not like Chess where only the gameplay matters. The gameplay needs to be aligned with the lore. Disintegrate which never disintegrate anything, and works like a generic DoT, low INT wizards being possible despite the game's lore establishing that wizards are intellectuals, mundane animals soaking multiple fireballs(...) This is what makes magery lackluster on pillars.

so what does any of that verbal diarrhea have to do with pillars of eternity

a game you don't play and never play

1 - An example of a game which made caster's live very hard and was very fun
2 - An example that casters can be hard to be played without breaking the "role playing"
3 - I posted a screenshot some posts ago showing over 90 hours on Pillars 2

none of the shit you said had anything to do with pillars of eternity

I feel like you didn't read my question

what the fuck does any of that have to do with pillars of eternity

Was just a example of a game where is hard to be a wizard without being boring. That Pillars mechanics are completely nonsensical.